FEMA Records
12
Low volume
Georgia · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Schley County, GA
12 FEMA disaster declarations (1977-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Hurricane.
- 12
- FEMA declarations
- 5
- Major disasters
- 1
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Hurricane
- Top hazard
The verdict
Schley County has a nationally busy FEMA history: 12 declarations, more than 14% of counties in this registry. But the state comparison tempers that reading: the total is 31% below the Georgia county mean. FEMA's separate National Risk Index places the county safer than 1%; that score models loss and vulnerability rather than counting declarations.
- Safer than 1%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 12
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 6
- hurricane declarations, the most common hazard here
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records; an EM authorizes a narrower set of federal assistance than a DR.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 13249 · Schley County 12 declarations · rank 2749/3,266
DECL-MID · MAJOR-LIGHT · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-HIGH · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-MID 12
- MAJOR-LIGHT 42%
- RANK-LOWER #2,749
- PHOTO-FINISH Johnson
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-HIGH High
- TYPE-LEAD Hurricane
- VS-ST-BELOW -31%
Nearest declaration peer: Johnson, KS (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Georgia state profile
Schley County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Schley County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Crane · near 12
Crane · near
12 declarations
- Johnson · near 12
Johnson · near
12 declarations
- Schley · this county 12
Schley · this county
12 declarations
- Seward · near 12
Seward · near
12 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Schley County carries 12 FEMA declaration records, ranked 2749 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Schley County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Schley County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Schley County
12 14th percentile higher than 14% of 3,266 counties
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more counties. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-25
Schley County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Schley County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $490.0K Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Relatively High), while Hurricane carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low). EAL and risk score use different inputs; they need not agree.
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025 release) - Expected Annual Loss vs composite risk rating by hazard.
What does Schley County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
This county sits at the very bottom of FEMA's National Risk Index nationally, a composite score of 0.6/100 (rated Very Low). Projected losses are minimal, Expected Annual Loss reads Very Low (roughly $1.2M in annualized losses), and the county's exposure is shaped by a Very Low social-vulnerability profile and Very Low community resilience. Even the county's top-rated hazard, Hurricane, only reaches Very Low on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 11 years here, based on 24 historical events on record.
Reading the federal records together
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
Start with the state benchmark: a Georgia county averages 17.4 federal declaration records, while Schley County has 12. The gap is 31% below that mean. Fewer entries indicate a quieter history of recorded federal actions, not immunity from a hazard and not a prediction about what happens next.
43 /100
Historical Activity Index
Moderate historical activity
Schley County, GA · PlainHazard-derived composite from federal records
This 0–100 index is an explicit PlainHazard composite from FEMA declaration history only on the county surface (this DB has no county-level NOAA damage row) . It is not FEMA's National Risk Index, not a forecast, and not a safety, insurance, or preparedness rating. Open the calculator · Methodology
FEMA Declarations (1953–present) Moderate
9/30
12 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.6x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
9/25
12 declarations (0.7x state county average of 17)
Major Disaster Share Moderate
10/25
5 of 12 declarations are major disasters (42%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Schley County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Schley County
How to read this radar
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
Major Disaster share
42%
Mixed major share
NRI risk score
1
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Schley County?
FEMA's National Risk Index models a historical event count and an annualized frequency for each hazard type. Most hazards are expressed as modeled occurrences per year; FEMA expresses drought and heat-wave frequency as event-days per year. These modeled frequencies are not forecasts.
| Hazard | NRI Risk Rating | Recurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Hurricane | Very Low | roughly once every 11 years |
| Drought | Relatively Low | 52 modeled event-days per year |
| Wildfire | Very Low | roughly once every 1,393 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 773 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 7.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
| Lightning | Very Low | an average of 67 times per year |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 2.5 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | roughly once every 12 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | an average of 1.6 times per year |
| Cold Wave | Very Low | roughly once every 4 years |
| Winter Weather | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 3 years |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 9 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Hurricane 6
Biological 2
Winter Storm 1
Tropical Storm 1
Tornado 1
Drought 1
What Hurricane declarations mean here
Hurricane is the most frequent declaration type on Schley County's federal record, 50% of its declarations. Atlantic tropical systems run on a defined season, 1 June to 30 November, with most activity concentrated between August and October; Pacific and territorial basins run on their own calendars. A single named storm routinely produces one declaration number covering a long corridor of counties at once, well inland as well as on the coast, which is why an affected county's count can jump by several in one year without several separate events having occurred.
One practical distinction matters when reading these records: a tropical declaration usually bundles wind, storm surge and inland rainfall flooding under a single incident, but the insurance behind them is split. Wind damage falls to property insurers, while flood and surge damage is covered only under a separate National Flood Insurance Program policy. That is why a county can show heavy declaration activity and a comparatively small NFIP claims record, or the reverse.
Declaration counts describe past federal action. They are a record of what was declared, not a forecast of future hazard probability.
Declaration Types
What DR / EM / FM mean
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
Emergency - 7 58.3%
of all 12 declarations
Major Disaster - 5 41.7%
of all 12 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2019 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 2 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2004 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 1 | |
| 1977 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 12 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 12 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3642 | SEVERE WINTER STORM | EM | Winter Storm | 2026-01-24 |
| 3616 | HURRICANE HELENE | EM | Tropical Storm | 2024-09-26 |
| 4501 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-29 |
| 3464 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 4400 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | DR | Hurricane | 2018-10-14 |
| 3406 | HURRICANE MICHAEL | EM | Hurricane | 2018-10-10 |
| 4338 | HURRICANE IRMA | DR | Hurricane | 2017-09-15 |
| 3387 | HURRICANE IRMA | EM | Hurricane | 2017-09-08 |
| 3218 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-05 |
| 1560 | TROPICAL STORM FRANCES | DR | Hurricane | 2004-09-24 |
| 1033 | TORNADOES, FLOODING TORRENTIAL RAIN(TROP STORM ALBERTO) | DR | Tornado | 1994-07-07 |
| 3044 | DROUGHT | EM | Drought | 1977-07-20 |
Storm Events in Georgia
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Schley County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunderstorm Wind | 9,617 | 15 | 75 | $65.4M |
| Drought | 1,363 | 0 | 0 | $0 |
| Hail | 1,257 | 0 | 0 | $61.8M |
| Flash Flood | 1,154 | 0 | 3 | $29.3M |
| Tropical Storm | 655 | 28 | 19 | $855.3M |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 0.6/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$1.2M/year
Social Vulnerability
Very Low
Community Resilience
Very Low
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Hurricane Very Low
Drought Relatively Low
Wildfire Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Lightning Very Low
Hail Very Low
Landslide Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Cold Wave Very Low
Winter Weather Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
The model's sharpest exposure here: Hurricane
Hurricane exposure in the model bundles the three ways a tropical system does harm, which arrive on different timescales and are insured differently: wind, storm surge on the coast, and rainfall flooding that can reach far inland well after landfall.
For Schley County the two measures on this page point the same way: Hurricane is the county's highest-rated modeled hazard (Very Low), and Hurricane declarations also lead its federal record. Where the model and the declaration history agree, the reading is comparatively straightforward, the hazard is both expected and repeatedly realised.
National Risk Index ratings are modeled estimates of expected annual loss, not predictions of what will happen in any given year.
Data-matched county comparisons
Schley County's closest FEMA peer: Grant County, WA
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Schley County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Schley County shows 12 FEMA declarations, led by Hurricane.
Similar Major-disaster share
Schley County: 5 of 12 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Schley County: NRI composite 0.6 (Very Low).
How these peers are chosen
Cohort: Published U.S. county equivalents outside the source state or territory. Each metric keeps six ETL candidates; three unique destinations are shown after de-duplicating across axes. Declaration-volume ranking combines count and Major-disaster share and prefers a different leading incident type; Major-share ranks the Major fraction adjusted for volume; NRI ranks the modeled composite score only.
Retained FEMA snapshot feed for Schley County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Schley County: nearest out-of-state National Risk Index composite and nearest FEMA declaration count (floor ≥5 records). Record similarity only, not a forecast of the next hazard.
Similar NRI composite
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA NRI score. This county: 0.6 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 12. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Most disaster-prone counties
With 12 FEMA declarations, Schley County sits in the high-volume declaration band - see how that count ranks against other U.S. counties.
More PlainHazard guides
- Most disaster-prone counties - U.S. counties ranked by FEMA declaration totals.
- Understanding disaster data - declarations vs storm events vs NRI scores.
- Preparing for natural disasters - household checklist (not county-specific advice).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Schley County?
The most common disaster type in Schley County is Hurricane, with 6 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Winter Storm (1), Tropical Storm (1).
How does Schley County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Georgia average?
The typical Georgia county has 17.4 FEMA declaration records; Schley County has 12, or 31% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 42% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Schley County received?
Schley County has received 5 major disaster declarations, representing 42% of all 12 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Schley County?
No. In Schley County, Hurricane has the highest National Risk Index rating (Very Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $490.0K. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Schley County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Schley County was 2017, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1977 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Schley County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Schley County, Georgia has an overall risk score of 0.6 out of 100 (Very Low). The county's social vulnerability rating is Very Low and community resilience is Very Low. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $1.2M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Schley County?
The top hazard flagged by FEMA's NRI for Schley County as of the latest release is Hurricane (risk rating: Very Low). Other significant hazards include Drought (Relatively Low) and Wildfire (Very Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts hurricane here at roughly once every 11 years, drawn from 24 historical events on record. FEMA derives these ratings from historical event frequency, the assets exposed, and the community's vulnerability profile.
Data Sources & Methodology
Disaster declaration data comes from the FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API, which includes all federally declared disasters, emergencies, and fire management assistance grants.
Storm event data is sourced from the NOAA Storm Events Database (2015-2025), which tracks significant weather events including thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, and winter storms.
This data is provided for informational purposes only. FEMA disaster declarations represent federal response actions and may not capture all local emergencies or weather events.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Schley County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Georgia profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events